


So When Does This Start Being Weird

by BatchSan



Series: So When Does This Start Being Weird [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Did I mention there was some crack too, Fluff, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Horny Teenagers, Humor, Multi, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Romance, Teen Angst, Teenagers Living Together Unsupervised, aneurysm caused from attempting to write 32 characters in one scene, how bad could that be?, see? stuff like that, they're probably other stuff too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-11
Updated: 2013-06-11
Packaged: 2017-12-14 16:02:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/838730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BatchSan/pseuds/BatchSan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The game is won - easy peasy, lemon squeezy! Beta and alpha, human and troll, all get dumped, alive, on a mixed Earth in a time that really belongs to none of them (okay, maybe two of them?). Nothing to do but bite the bullet and settle down somewhere, like maybe the Lalonde mansion, which is conveniently empty and basically waiting for them. Nice!</p><p>Yeah, no sweat – 32 teenagers can totes live under one roof without any kind of trouble. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!</p><p>(Set in the same 'verse as <i>'Let's Fap Until Karkat or Kankri Scream (And Even Then)'</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	So When Does This Start Being Weird

**Author's Note:**

> So I took some creative liberties with this, mostly because they suited my needs and mostly because I’m a lazy sod that doesn’t look up all her info until it’s too late (some canon info might be screwed up - sorry). But like, this is set wherein after everyone gets dumped on John’s lap, they all get into their final fights shortly thereafter and don’t have much time to catch up. This picks up just after they (finally) win the game.
> 
> I blame this on RidleyDidley and anyone else who questioned the setting the characters lived in _’Let’s Fap Until Karkat or Kankri Scream (And Even Then)’_. SEE WHAT YOU’VE ALL DONE? NOW YOU ALL GET A SERIES BECAUSE OF ALL YOUR QUESTIONY QUESTIONS! XD 
> 
> This is set before _'Let's Fap Until Karkat or Kankri Scream (And Even Then)'_ and will tie into that fic, though this is more the main fic in the 'verse. *drags self away to plan next unnecessarily huge HS fic/project*

There’s a shift; a jolt of reality. Hands are blurred as the world spins around them. Round and round it goes, where it stops, no one knows.

John gags, Dave comes short of vomiting, Karkat does vomit, Kanaya holds onto tighter to Rose. The others are shadows in the mist, unseen, but definitely there.

Meenah laughs.

Yeah, the others are definitely there.

They melt and fade, bend and stretch in ways impossible. Someone screams, the sound choked and gone as suddenly as it appears. 

Round and round they all go, until everything stops suddenly. A violent jerk of realities crashing, worlds ending and reforming. The buzz of snow on a television.

Everything goes black with a distant hiss of air deflating from a tire.

*

“Yo,” someone says. 

“Yo,” the voice repeats.

Rose chooses not to acknowledge it. Maybe if she plays dead, they’ll go away, let her sleep a bit more. Something shakes her, gently. Annoyed, she cracks open an eye and closes it just as quickly. Bright sunlight beats down on her eyelids. It takes a moment for her to realize she can’t remember the last time she’s seen sunlight. 

“Rose, you really need to see this.”

 _Sunlight_ , she thinks, lost in her own head despite the voice, _must mean we died_. 

“Goddammit, Rose, get your ass up.”

There’s another shake, rougher though. She frowns and forces herself to sit up. Aside from a dull throb behind her eyes, likely from being nearly blinded by the surprise sunlight, she’s feels surprisingly all right. Opening her eyes takes effort because her mind feels like it just wants to go back to sleep, forever if at all possible. The first thing she sees is Kanaya half sprawled across her legs; the second is Dave, standing tall against the blue sky, his hair a halo of golden against the sun’s rays.

“So we won the game and died,” she says, not really feeling surprised. The game had a nasty way of pissing on your hopes.

“Dead?” Dave repeats a little questioning before cracking a smirk. “Doubt it. I haven’t felt this alive since Bro first strifed with me. A man doesn’t feel alive until someone’s surprised attacked them while going back to bed in the middle of the night wearing nothing but boxers.”

“I’ll be sure to avoid such a situation in the future to prevent any facial hair growth and the need to belch the alphabet while drinking a beer,” Rose says, running her hand through Kanaya’s black curls. 

It takes a moment, but the troll stirs, bleary as she pushes herself up. She looks around in confusion, but smiles at the sunlight, holding her hand up to it as if she could grab it. Rose doesn’t think she’s ever seen her girlfriend so genuinely happy.

“Feels perfect,” she says.

“Everything feels perfect right now,” Dave says. “The game just scared the shit out of us and then shat us out onto some random planet for the ironic lulz. Doesn’t get more perfect than that.”

Rose looks around, recognition slowly settling in as she spies bodies belonging to human and troll alike spewed about the area like children’s toys tossed around and forgotten on the floor. Small blessing for their landing having been on grass.

Grass.

A bubble of laughter trickles from her throat and Kanaya and Dave look at her in surprise. There’s no reason for the laughter, only the startling realization that they WON. Three years of trials and tribulations galore and they had finally WON and were maybe ALIVE.

“I think all this sudden sun has fried her brains,” Dave says to Kanaya.

“It would appear so,” Kanaya says. “Rose, dear?”

“I assure you both that I am very much in my right state of mind, and not drunk at that,” Rose says.

To prove it, she pulls Kanaya toward her by the shirt and kisses her soundly on the mouth. Dave groans and makes fake gagging noises. This is then preceded by an audible _‘Whoa!’_ from somewhere nearby. They all look up to spy John staring in shock at the kiss he had just witnessed.

“Er, sorry,” he offers awkwardly, “I didn’t know that you went that way Rose.”

She tilts her head and smiles at him. “I only apologize for putting a hamper on Karkat’s shipping chart, but it’s quite nice to see you again, John.”

“Egderp, you’ve been gone far too long,” Dave says, smiling as he helps him to his feet.

“Ha, yeah, I guess so.”

John hugs Dave, happy to see him outside of a situation pertaining to or surrounded by threat of death and/or doom. At least as far as they could tell.

“Sorry we didn’t get to do a proper game of catch up before Noir and fishbitch showed up,” Dave says. “Shit got real ugly, real fast. Also, belated happy birthday, man.”

John laughs and fistbumps Dave’s offered fist. “Thanks, Dave.”

“FUCK. Who hit me with the fucking shovel?” someone growled nearby.

“Karkat!” John says happily, racing over to him.

“Shut up, shitstain. I mean, I’m happy to see you alive and all, I guess, but my head is pounding,” Karkat says in annoyance, reluctantly getting to his feet.

“Aw, I missed you too, Karkat!”

John laughs as the troll glowers at him before blushing lightly and hugging the human quickly as if doing so would erode his bones if he held on too long. He pretends not notice the surprised look on John’s face as he dusts his pants and looks around, wincing.

“Why the fuck is so gogdamn bright?”

“Uh, because the sun is out?” John offers.

Karkat screams, hiding his face behind his arms. “I fucking knew helping you asswipes would get me killed! Fuck, my skin is already blistering isn’t? I hope you’re fucking happy dipshit!”

John stands there, blinking. Behind him, Dave snickers.

“You look right as rain to me, bro,” Dave says to Karkat, helping Terezi to her feet. “I don’t think you’ll be melting like the Wicked Witch any time soon.”

Karkat peeks an eye open and closes it quickly, disbelieving Dave’s confidence. When he peeks again a minute later, he finds Sollux looking up at him from where he’s seated on the ground.

“Seriously, KK?” Sollux sighs. “If we were going to die in the sunlight, I’m pretty sure it would have happened already.”

“I suspect,” Rose says from where she, Kanaya, and Porrim are standing a few feet away, “that we’re on Earth. Likely why the sun hasn’t killed anyone yet, though I wouldn’t recommend staring up at the sun for too long here as that will hurt your retinas considerably.”

“But we won’t die?” Karkat asks, dropping his arms.

“Doubtful,” she smiles, going back to eying the Maryams.

“You looked like an idiot, KK, just so you know.”

“Fuck you!”

Others stir over the next fifteen minutes or so, waking up one by one in confusion. Rose realizes that there’s a lot of trolls in the immediate vicinity, of that she can’t seem to make heads or tails as to why. Winning the game appeared to have granted life to all the players of the game, or at least the ones that participated in the final battles against Jack Noir, Bec Noir, Lord English, and Condesce. She’s troubled by the fact much of these final moments, at least hers against the Condesce, are already fractured and foggy in her mind. As if she were looking at them through a broken window. It made no sense, but then, neither did the fact that the dead from the dreambubbles appeared to be alive and well now.

And also, the teen version of her mother was standing maybe thirty feet from her, surrounded by Nepeta and another female troll with gills she wasn’t too confident she knew or could remember the name of right then and there. In all, the game had presented them all with unexpected consolation prizes.

“So does anyone knoww wwhere the flying fish wwe’re at?” Eridan asks, grimacing.

Sollux frowns at the sound of Eridan’s voice. Aradia takes his hand, calming him.

“Speculation leads me to believe that we’re on Earth,” Rose says, catching the attention of most of the trolls. “Though I’m not aware of what timeframe or what policies exist considering the existence of trolls.”

“Shouldn’t we have all gone to our separate planets?” Vriska asks. 

“If I may?” Aranea asks, stepping up beside Rose. Rose nods at her, curious to hear her assessment of their situation. 

“If I had to wager a guess, I suspect that those of us that scratched our doomed or nulled sessions voided our original prize of returning to our own planets. Since we stepped into another session, one that had the potential to be won, once certain criterias were met, but more importantly, one that not been scratched yet, we were eligible to share in the prize the original players of that session would receive. In short, I believe the game expelled us onto a mixed Earth – the planet where the original session had taken place, to conform not only to the original players prize destination, but to help take into account the other players in the game, despite the fact that they joined later on.”

“So basically,” John begins, with a small frown, “it’s kind of like when you jump in as second player in your friend’s game and help them win the game? You both get rewarded the same thing even though one of you stepped in later. Something like that, right?”

“Very good, John!” Aranea appraises.

There’s a murmur of discussion about this, many disappointed not to be returning to their original homes, the others excited by the prospects set before them in this new world. A few others remained silent, lost in their own thoughts.

“If that’s true,” a voice broke through the din. Most were surprised to see it was Dirk. “Then those of us from other sessions wouldn’t have a home here, not really, and those of us from other time periods on the original planet would also be misplaced, correct?”

Aranea taps her finger against her chin for a moment, thinking it over before answering, “Yes, I believe that would be correct. If anything, the game likely reset the time period to reflect that of the first player of the session into the game.”

Dirk nods and looks over at Jane, who blushes in realization.

“So we’re in my time?” she asks, to confirm.

Dirk nods again. 

“How much time do you think has occurred?” Jane asks, feeling trepidation. 

“Likely the same amount of what you spent away in the game, is my guess,” Aranea answers.

“I don’t know how long you been playing your session,” Dave says, his eyebrows visibly knitting above his shades, “but it’s April… Fifteen? I think. Feels like it is. Yeah, I’m gonna say it’s April fifteenth. Holy shit, I think it’s 2012 as well. Fuck yes, new pop culture and material here I fucking come.”

“You can still use your time powers?” Rose asks, surprised.

His eyebrows rise in realization. “Yeah, seems so, but it’s not as strong as before. Like I could tell you the time down to the nanosecond before, but I had to really focus to get the date. Pretty sure I can tell you the correct time if I tried a little harder too, but I doubt I’ll get it down to the second.”

Hearing this, John attempts to do the windy thing and actually succeeds in drawing a cold wind over his friends and new acquaintances, but it’s not strong, definitely not enough to cover the whole planet, but close enough, he feels. Aradia closes her eyes and flickers out of existence for a moment, but reappears with a slight frown. 

“I think my time traveling days may have come to end,” she says. “Maybe with a little practice, as Dave pointed out, I could skip ahead a day or go back one, but I don’t think I can travel like I did before.”

“Interesting,” Aranea says.

Beside her, Meenah rolls her eyes, knowing her girlfriend is lost in theorizing and words of blah-blah-fucking-blah up in her thinkpan. 

“Do you think we’re still immortal too?” Dave asks Rose in a hushed voice.

Rose can only shrug at the idea, unsure whether or not she’s willing to test out the theory. They’ve all done enough of dying and fighting, a reprieve was in high order. She tunes out the rest of the din around her in favor of surveying her surroundings, noticing once again how remarkable familiar they look. Tugging Kanaya’s hand, she moves away from the crowd and ignores Kanaya’s questions. There’s something she needs to confirm, something she needs to see with her own eyes.

She doesn’t have to go far to find it - another clearing past the trees. This one is not empty as it holds a large mansion in the center of its grounds, small stream running beneath and past it. A near exact picture of her own home – which it was, in a roundabout matter of speaking.

“Rose, you’re squeezing my hand quite tightly. Is it something dangerous or…?” Kanaya lets the question hang, unsure really where to go with it.

“If it’s true we’re on the planet of the Alpha session, then this is my home,” she says, feeling a sick kind of fascination with the idea.

On her Earth, this mansion had been her mother’s. Here, it was hers, wasn’t it? An alternate version of herself, but still, her - Rose Lalonde. 

From the bushes, emerges Jade, who looks up at the mansion and then at Rose questioningly.

“I believe we’ve happened upon our new home,” Rose explains as though it was obvious.


End file.
